Ok, complete novice here, forgive technical/etiquette errors please.
Plan is to share ideas, insights, experiences concerning the work of Carl Jung, the construction of a Jungian ethics and its relevance to professional ethics in general and public relations ethics in particular – the subject of my PhD.
Said PhD now in second year – full time – so I will summarise main discoveries in next few posts. This is just the intro. I don’t just want to share intellectual content, but also the ups and downs of the PhD process itself (I notice there are a few PhD diaries out there, so this must be a common desire). The point is to encourage reflexivity, asking questions about my own assumptions, blind spots, fears, progress and inviting others to join in if you so wish.
Because I have chosen rather vast topic areas – Jung wrote over 20 volumes; ethics has a 2000+ year history and my own field – public relations – fills bookshelves and teems with multiple perspectives and changing ideas – I am feeling my way into the links between these elements and would be very interested in any response from those with more experience of a particular aspect of the whole picture.
My main thesis is that professional ethics tends to be based on ideas of goodness – the ideal-typical (Larson, 1977) version of the professional – and stresses excellence and best practice, with codes to clarify and, in theory, police this best practice. Any deviance should be punished but is often ignored or blamed on ‘bad apples’.
Jung’s idea of individuation suggests that this approach emphasises the ‘persona’ or public face at the expense of the shadow, hidden self. Jung’s Shadow is not just the negative aspects of the person (or group) but may contain unlived elements including creativity, spontaneity etc. The point is that maturity requires recognition and acceptance of that which has been denied – the integration of the Shadow is the prerequisite for the whole individual. And I can’t see how you can base an ethics on anything less.
Later, I’ll talk about Pr and its divided professional Self…………………
Filed under: main themes
